לחם חן — Lechem Chein

This week’s parsha isn’t named after the Ten Commandments. It’s named after what happens right before them. Before revelation. Before the laws. Before Sinai. Something interrupts the flow. Moshe is drowning.  Not in the sea like the Egyptians last week, but in responsibility. From morning until night, people line up in front of him.  Every question, every dispute, every decision goes through him.  Not because he wants control, and not because he doesn’t trust anyone else, but because when you’re in survival mode, you don’t step back and plan.   You keep things moving. You deal with whatever is right in front of you.  You carry what needs to be carried. Survival shrinks your field of vision.  That doesn’t make you wrong. It just makes you busy. And Yisro is the one who sees it. “This isn’t good,” he tells Moshe.  “You can’t do this alone. You’re too deep in it to see what’s happening.” It matters who Yisro is. He’s an outsider, not caught up in the urge...

Yud Shvat reminds us of a quiet but demanding idea. It marks a moment, three-quarters of a century ago, when the leadership of Chabad passed to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, bringing renewed focus to a simple but challenging question: where does G-d show up in real life? The teaching most associated with that moment, Basi LeGani, isn’t about spiritual escape or transcendence. It’s about G-d choosing to dwell within ordinary human experience. Not after fear is resolved, but inside it. Not once we’re elevated or ready, but right in the middle of our process. Reading Parshas Beshalach through that lens sharpens everything. There was a shorter road out of Egypt. The Torah tells us G-d deliberately avoided it. Not because He didn’t know the way, but because He knew the people taking it. If fear showed up too soon, turning back would be easy. So the path became longer, less familiar, and harder to reverse. A road shaped not just by geography, but by human psychology. That doesn’t read as punishment...

This morning, what feels like a few hours ago, I stood at my son’s Bris. A covenant made in the body. Before understanding. Before consent. Before readiness. Something that shapes you before you’ve had a chance to overthink it. There is no negotiation at a Bris. No waiting until things feel settled. Identity is marked first, and only later does a person grow into what that mark means. Holding that moment, Parshas Bo reads differently. Parshas Bo is most often remembered for its drama. The plagues intensify. Egypt collapses. Freedom finally comes into view. But if you slow down and read carefully, something quieter and more surprising is happening beneath the surface. Before the Jewish people leave Egypt, before Pharaoh is finished, before the sea splits, God gives us a mitzvah. Time. Not just linear, but in rhythmic cycles. “This month shall be for you the head of months.” Kiddush HaChodesh is the first mitzvah given to the Jewish people as a nation. Not after freedom. Not once things ...

I haven’t baked sourdough in a few weeks. Not because I didn’t want to— I did. You see, the thing is, last night our family welcomed a new baby boy. And when you’re that close to a birth, you don’t always know when you’ll need to drop everything and head out.  I noticed I needed to stay available, ready to respond, ready to disappear from whatever I was in the middle of. Sourdough doesn’t really work that way. Once you start, it asks you to stay. Sure, there are small and large breaks along the way, but overall it needs routine and consistency. And you can’t be stressed or rushing it. The dough feels that and won’t come out the same. So for now, I haven’t begun. The starter was pre-fed and set to hibernate for a while. The tools are where they should be. The oven is ready. But the dough remains unmixed. Instead, we’ve been pulling loaves out of the freezer. It’s a particular kind of pause. Not hesitation. Not avoidance. Just choosing not to begin something I can’t stay with. Parsha...

Compared to how explosive Pasuk Alef of Chumash Bereishis opens, Chumash Shemos opens rather quietly. No Pharaoh. No suffering. No miracles. We’ll get there in a minute. For now, it’s just a simple list. וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל These are the names of the children of Israel. Before the Torah tells us what happens to the people, it reminds us who they are. Because exile doesn’t begin with chains. It begins when people stop being known. When names disappear, people become numbers. And history has shown us how quickly millions of numbers can be erased. In Torah, a name isn’t just what you’re called. It carries dignity. It insists that before a person becomes labor, function, or survival, they are seen. Even more than that, the Hebrew letters of a name are understood as carriers of life force. The world itself is created with the letters of the Alef Beis. They are not random. Their combinations matter. Their numbers matter. Meaning is built into them. That is why the book of Exod...

It’s December 31st morning, and the calendar feels louder than usual. Not because something major changes at midnight, but because we as a society have decided that it matters. It is the last day of the secular year. Charidy campaigns are everywhere, offering one more tax-deductible donation, and that familiar inner voice says, “go on… one last sweet treat before the diet starts tomorrow.” Vayechi opens the same way, standing at the edge of an ending. Yaakov is nearing his final moments, but the Torah never says he died. It says: וַיְחִי — and he lived. He is still alive in the moment. His days are drawing near, so he calls Yosef close. Not to say goodbye, but to say what still needs to be said. The Gemara even says it: “יעקב אבינו לא מת” — Yaakov never truly died (Taanis 5b). Not because his body remained, but because his life kept moving through the people who carried it. If his children are still living what he stood for, then so is he. Vayechi is not an ending. It i...

Vayigash finds us in the middle of a story that’s been unfolding for a long time.  We arrive already carrying what came before: the sale, the silence, the waiting, the drama with the brothers, the years that never quite resolved. When the turning point finally comes, it can feel compressed. Yehuda speaks. Yosef breaks. The truth spills out. A family is reunited. But if we stay with the parsha a little longer, it doesn’t actually feel sudden. You can see the timeline that led here, a long arc of choices, restraint, and consequence that made this moment not just possible, but safe. It’s often hard to see what a moment means while you’re still living it. Learning Vayigash this week, I found myself drawn less to the reunion itself and more to everything that made it sustainable. The parsha shows us that real change often becomes visible only after it’s already done its work. In baking bread, the most important transformation happens during fermentation, while nothing seems to be happen...

Earlier this week, I saw something I’d never seen before. Even as I kept driving, I kept asking myself, “Did that just happen?” A dead deer had been sitting on the side of the road long enough that vultures had moved in. Not somewhere remote. Not out in the wild. On a city street, around the corner from my kids school. They weren’t circling overhead. Four or five of them stood there already, calmly picking at the carcass. It was unsettling not because of the birds themselves, but because of what their presence meant.  Vultures don’t appear at the moment of danger. They arrive once something has already crossed the line into “too late”. Once things reach that point, the only responses left are reactive. Cleanup replaces prevention. Response replaces foresight. That question of timing — of how early or late we respond — is exactly where Parshas Miketz begins. Miketz opens with Pharaoh disturbed by dreams he can’t shake. Healthy cows swallowed by starving ones. Full stalks of grain co...

Download printable version (PDF)   Chanukah Reflections Lighting With the Parsha Where We Are Opening Reflection On Chanukah, we don’t begin by filling the room with light. We begin with a single flame. One candle. One night. One small act. We light, and then we watch. We don’t rush the glow. We let it settle, even when the world around us feels unsettled or dark. During Chanukah, the Torah includes special holiday readings.  For this practice, we’re setting those aside and letting the Parsha of the week guide our nightly reflection. Each night of Chanukah, we move through a different aliya of Parshas Miketz, following the weekly parsha as it unfolds. On the eighth night, we step naturally into the opening aliya of Vayigash, as the story begins to turn. We’re not approaching the parsha as a lesson or analysis, but as a lens. For these nights, the parsha becomes a kind of shamash — not one of the candles, and not the focus of our attention, but the steady source that helps eac...